Letters to the Editor
modesto
Published Letters: 9 Editor's Choice: 1
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Re: The Weekly Standard's "9/11 Generation"
[Read the article: The Weekly Standard's "9/11 Generation"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I think that any comparison of numbers between Viet Nam and Iraq needs to spend time reviewing the effect of the draft more completely. There were a lot of young men who did not have a choice and who knew they were going into a meat grinder of a war. The difference today is that Iraq is also a meat grinder, and many young men know this and that they don't have to go. How anyone can interpret this as some kind of patriotism just because they don't march in the street is either a mistake or an intentional oversight.
Many of the U.S. soldiers in Iraq joined because they didn't have many occupational choices, and many of them would leave the military tomorrow if they could. The Weekly Standard is engaging in sheer propaganda based on selective facts, and that needs to be pointed out.
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The Blindness of Experts
[Read the article: The rigid pro-war ideology of the foreign policy community]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I don't remember who said "It is difficult to make a man believe something when his paycheck depends on him disbelieving it," but it is apt to our foreign policy "community." The only thing in its defense is that many groups of experts fall to the same groupthink, and they squeeze out the contrarians who may not alway be right, but should at least be listened to. But when certain people and groups are paying the bills, it's damn near impossible. Nevertheless, if any of them or their employees or minions are reading this, hear this: You have spent your credibility for the last time. I am an educated, affluent, middle of the road person w/ property, family, and a professional career, and I will not listen to nor take anything these goofups like Pollock, Cordesman, and Kristol say again seriously.
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Political Insults
[Read the article: "Nazis" and "Hitler" -- the Right's casual, trivializing political insults]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]On one hand, it's probably that Fox News and the various hate radio programs that use such insults on a daily basis are simply continuing their race to the bottom as they face declining ratings. On the other hand, after watching half of Ken Burns' "The War," it is staggeringly sad and infuriating for these people to use these words to smear those who they oppose. Almost 300,000 U.S. soldiers died in WWII to defeat Nazism, fascism, and Japanese imperial aggression. Overall, approximately 60 million people died in the war, including about 20 million soldiers and 40 million civilians. About 12 million of the 40 million civilian casualties happened in the Holocaust. This is what Hitler and the Nazis brought us, and not simply an ad campaign against an unpopular and disasterously costly and ineptly implemented war in the Mideast.
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The Real Nazis and Fascists
[Read the article: Follow-up to the silence from the ADL regarding Fox News and right-wing talk radio]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]After watching virtually every single episode of Ken Burns' "The War," I know have a much idea of what real Nazis, Fascists, and Imperialists are capable of. Americans who dissent against this Administration and its actions and decisions, and its supporters, are hardly any of these things.
Calling anyone who disagrees with the idea that we can bomb the world into submission (to say nothing of allowing us to control their oil or prevent them from demanding Euros in return for selling it to us) Nazis or Fascists is obscene and as un-American as one can get. To think that the U.S. lost almost 300,000 soldiers fighting true Nazis and Fascists just so chickenhawk cowards like Jonah Goldberg and Bill O'Reilly could call their verbal opponents these names makes me sick and ashamed to share the same language and country with them.
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Condoleeza Rice is Scary
[Read the article: Change is scary, says Condoleezza Rice]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Dang straight we're afraid. I'm afraid of what my country is turning into--has turned into. I'm afraid of what some domestic wingnutter w/ an arsenal is going to do, all pumped up on rage against the usual suspects. I'm afraid of Bush pulling the trigger on Iran, which would send the price of oil into space, create global rage against Americans, and make a pariah of the United States. I'm afraid of what our national response would be after another major terrorist incident. Would civil rights be suspended? Elections? Passports confiscated and registration at police stations? I'm afraid my job will be eliminated in a round of tax cutting intended to keep the party going for a favored few. I'm afraid my young daughter will die in a global pandemic because she can't get an immunization. I'm afraid our paper investments will be washed away in a wave of financial collapse brought on by a casino economy. I'm afraid of the people running our country at this time.
Afraid? Hell, yes. Big duh, Condi.
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Another Respected Institution Bites the Dust
[Read the article: A bizarre, unsolicited e-mail from Gen. Petraeus' spokesman ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]So, now our top military brass are nothing but political flacks trying to make lemonade out of the sourest lemons. Lovely. Thank you, Colonel Boylan, for reducing this military brat's deep respect for the U.S. Army down to virtually zero. And to think that this country was once worth fighting for...
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Do These People Really Think?
[Read the article: Hitlers, Hitlers and more Hitlers]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]A child could predict the outcome of the U.S. bombing Iran:
1. Oil prices would go through the roof. Gas could go to $4-5 or more overnight.
2. Russia and China would react. Russia would do everything it could to keep us out of the Kazakhstan oilfields (and could deny us natural gas), and China could begin to call in its T-bills.
3. Iran would tie us up badly in Iraq in the way the incompetent American military is already accusing it of, and they have enough missles and other high-tech military weaponry to challenge us for control of the Hormuz Strait.
I can't believe anyone actually pays serious attention to Podhoretz. What a damn fool.
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Brilliant and Timely
[Read the article: Of war and cancer]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Mr. Kamiya's essay is brilliant and timely, coming when those of us who are tempted to write off America as a failed empire are at a personal low in our history, nationally and otherwise. I certainly hope there is nowhere to go but up, and that we can trade on some of the deep well of trust we earned under more trying circumstances, and under more inspirational leaders. We simply must. Like it or not, the U.S. remains the light of the world in many ways, Bush be damned--and he will.